


Four Times Izzie Had What Addison Needed (And One Time She Didn't)

by winter_machine



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: A little Wistful, Could have happened, F/F, Femslash, Grey's Season 2, I miss those days, Ill-advised Sexual Encounters, Maybe - Freeform, are there any other kind, bad choices make good fic, by which I mean the hard drives, dug out of the archives, remember when Four Things was the thing, that time I realized maybe Addizzie is still a thing, vintage 2012 fic, when Addek was still trying to try
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:49:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25392655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winter_machine/pseuds/winter_machine
Summary: It's all in the title.  Remember when the fandom was all "Five Things" and "Four Things" fics?  Mostly canon-compliant, Season 2, slightly wistful and definitely inappropriate.  Addison/Izzie.
Relationships: Addison Montgomery/Isobel "Izzie" Stevens, Addison Shepherd/Izzie Stevens
Comments: 1
Kudos: 23





	Four Times Izzie Had What Addison Needed (And One Time She Didn't)

**Author's Note:**

> Bobbiejelly, I blame/thank you for this, since you are the first person to make me think of Addison/Izzie in about a hundred years.

* * *

_ONE_

* * *

"You tricked me." 

"Stevens-"

"I thought I killed her. I thought I _killed_ that baby. How could you?" The intern's chin trembles and Addison feels an answering clench in her gut. Moving to Seattle meant accepting that she was the bad guy, through and through. The adulterous bitch and now the cold-hearted mentor.

"I am your teacher," she begins in her most reasonable voice.

"You're a _bitch._ " Stevens spits the word and then has the good grace to look shocked and a little frightened, expressive blue eyes widening. "I- I'm sorry, I-"

"It's okay." Addison leans back heavily against the wall. "You're certainly not the first doctor in this hospital to think that."

Stevens is quiet for a moment, chest rising and falling visibly beneath her scrubs as she gains control. Finally she says softly: "I did get too attached to that baby."

Addison presses her lips together. _Damn you for being right, Richard._ "It happens to the best of us, Stevens."

"And I - oh god, I called my attending a bitch - and oh!" Stevens's eyes widen almost comically. "I just did it again, but - that time was an accident."

Addison smiles in spite of herself. "Stevens, whatever you think you know about why I'm here, I have a lot to teach."

"... if I'm willing to learn," Stevens finishes.

"Exactly."

"That's what you said - before-"

"I meant it. You show real promise in my field, Stevens."

"Izzie."

"Izzie," she pronounces awkwardly, but the word is too light for her, light and bubbly. She looks the other woman over, wondering where in the statuesque blonde Richard saw shades of a younger Addison. Izzie, Addie. Diminutive names and imposing heights? 

She hears her own plaintive voice to Richard, embarrassed: _I thought maybe we could be friends._

Reminding herself to be professional, she smiles briefly at the other woman, who still looks nonplussed. "Are you all right, Ste- Izzie?"

Stevens's mouth quirks into something that resembles a smile. "Yeah. I'm all right. Dr. Shepherd?"

"Yes?"

"Do you, um, would you want to get some coffee sometime?"

"I'm - your teacher," Addison repeats mechanically, not sure why she can't respond normally.

"So teach me how you like your coffee," and Stevens - no, Izzie - breaks into an unmistakable grin.

* * *

_TWO_

* * *

"Dr. Shepherd!" 

Izzie's voice gets more frantic as the ladies' room door bangs shut behind her. "Dr. Shepherd, what's going on?"

The cold tiles are seeping through her sheer stockings, sending a chill through her legs that makes her teeth chatter. 

"Dr. Shepherd?" Izzie knocks on the stall door, then finally pulls it open. "Should I call someone? Are you - oh." 

Addison watches Izzie take it in, knows what a sight she must seem slumped on the bathroom floor, legs splayed out in front of her. Her pencil skirt is hiked up around her thighs, the hair she painstakingly blow-dried this morning starting to curl humidly around her damp cheeks. She yanked her lab coat off at some point, probably right around the time she told a beaming couple that, 38 weeks into their pregnancy, their child wasn't going to make it. She flung apologies at their frozen faces, ordered a cringing intern to take them to the family lounge to be comforted by social workers, and stalked off down the hall as fast as she could, heels clattering.

She almost made it, was almost alone.

"Dr. Shepherd..."

"We had a daughter." She stretches her mary-janed feet out in front of her. 

"Oh," Izzie's gasp is audible.

"She was perfect except she was sick. My genes. Our genes, I -" Izzie doesn't need to hear everything, although Addison still remembers everything. 

"Your fellowship in medical genetics," Izzie muses quietly.

Addison studies her shoes, swallowing a teacher's pride at her student's ability to add two and two. "Yes, I'm that transparent."

"I'm so sorry." 

Everyone's always sorry.

"What was her name?"

Addison blinks. It's a new question. No one ever wants to ask it. How do you name sorrow, something that never existed, someone you were supposed to forget? "Catherine," she says, half under her breath. _The day she was induced they were still arguing about calling her Kate versus Cassie and instead they called time of death._ Addison closes her eyes for a moment, as much time as she'll allow herself to see a tiny curling fist resting limply in her hand. She was simultaneously the best and worst of them, the most perfect thing they'd created in their marriage and the most destructive. The most destroyed.

Now Addison is quiet, waiting for the next question. Waiting to be asked if she's okay. Everyone asks it but no one wants to hear the answer. It's just a call and response, it's just reassurance to the asker. _Tell me you don't need me. Tell me I can walk away._ If she had a nickel for every time Derek - she almost laughs, thinking she could finance another goddamned prime property with it. Maybe they'd actually be together in it this time - no, fat chance of that. They had their chance to be a family and their DNA took it from them. She squeezes her eyes closed. She won't cry; no one wants to hear it. 

"Addison?" Izzie speaks her Christian name for the first time as she touches her shoulder gently. "I know you're not okay, but - I'm, uh, I'm here, and if there's something I can do..."

The tears come quickly, a relief.

* * *

_THREE_

* * *

They jump apart guiltily in the elevator when it opens, his usually-perfect curls slightly mussed.

"Addison!" Derek's voice is overly bright, like an announcement. She rolls her eyes in response.

"I was, um, just leaving," the Grey girl mutters, scurrying off like a skinny mouse with an armload of files. Addison watches Derek watch her leave.

"If you stare long enough, do you think she'll grow an ass?"

Derek turns to glare at her. "Don't be vulgar."

"It's not vulgar to ogle your mistress in a public elevator?"

"It's vulgar to fuck your husband's best friend, but that didn't stop you."

They both pause, breathing heavily. Ten years ago arguments led to makeup sex; five years ago, spats gave way to angry sex. She holds her breath for a moment; she thinks she'll take anything at this point, some sign that he cares she's here. She needs a reason to stay because every day here is stretching into the kind of hopelessness she may not survive. Tentatively, she takes half a step toward him. 

"Derek, I-"

"Forget it." He presses the elevator button twice and when nothing happens, he walks out the still-open doors. 

"Derek!" If he hears her, as the elevator doors close, trapping her within it, his straight back gives no indication.

Izzie trails Addison to her office after they deliver high-risk twins. 

"Are you okay? You seemed distracted when-"

"I think my husband is still in love with your ... friend," Addison says without preamble, shrugging out of her white coat, smoothing the lines out of her silk dress and wishing she could do the same to her forehead.

"Oh." Izzie looks taken aback. "And that's - I mean, you -"

"I left everything behind in New York." Addison opens a file on her desk, then closes it. Izzie's standing closer to her than she realized, her blue eyes very bright. "Richard built this job around me-"

"Is that the only reason you're here? The job?"

Addison swallows. "Do I have some other reason to stay?"

Izzie leans forward and presses soft lips against hers. "Maybe one," she offers quietly.

* * *

_FOUR_

* * *

On call rooms are out, her office is tawdry and the trailer is out of the question, so they drive heart-poundingly to that big gingerbread house and fall onto Izzie's four-poster in a tangle of long limbs. Izzie is her younger self, that's what Richard said, so this - her arms around the younger woman's waist, her lower lip dragging against the curve of her neck - it's not cheating. No more than it's cheating when her hand drifts below the quilt when she lies next to Derek in the trailer, fingers finding her way into lace panties she wore for him and he never noticed. It's herself she's touching so it's not cheating and no one will get hurt and -

"Ow!" Addison winces, pulling at something small and hard poking into her spine. "Christmas lights?" Addison grabs a string of small red globes. 

Izzie blushes visible, pink spots on her round cheeks, a soft flush lighting her neck. "Meredith finally made me take them upstairs."

"It's February!"

"I just - really love Christmas," Izzie admits.

Addison feels the flush in her own cheeks swirl straight between her thighs. She captures the other woman's lips with her own and thinks she can taste gingerbread. "Christmas lights in February are perfect. Meredith's an idiot," she says daringly.

"It's her house."

"It's your house too." Addison nips at her neck and Izzie melts into her. 

Izzie's henley is halfway up her body when she stops, sinking onto the bed. "I feel guilty." 

Addison just nods briskly; she can handle guilty. She left the stain of guilt all over New York: in the slam of the brownstone door behind her husband, in Mark's wounded pale eyes, in the literal stain on the thousand count sheets the morning after Derek's sister vacuumed the rest of the guilt out of her body. Now Addison leans back against the pillows for a moment. Cheap, lumpy things - they remind her of Derek's first med school apartment before she sank her claws into his interior design. There's no reason to sleep on something this uncomfortable unless the sex is really, really -

"Oh!"

Izzie smirks. "I thought you weren't paying attention."

"You have my _full_ attention." Addison smirks back at her. "I thought you were feeling guilty?"

"It'll pass."

Addison can't help grinning. "So do we - wait for it to pass?"

Izzie just arches her back and strips the long-sleeved shirt over her head. 

Addison feels her body start to contract, the familiar rising and falling she hasn't felt in far too long. She's faked it every time with Derek since she came to Seattle; it's her anxiety, not his skill, to blame. First she was terrified he would sense Mark on her somehow, that her body would feel different under her hands. Then she watched him squeeze his eyes shut every time, knew he was picturing someone else and knew exactly who it was. He hasn't touched her in weeks anyway. 

She buries her face in that cheap pillow to muffle a scream as insistent fingers - _I knew you were a good student_ \- draw her to the brink and that rosebud mouth fastens onto her neck. It will leave a mark. Oh god, she will bruise and it will be worth it because she hasn't felt anything in far too long and she thinks she maybe screams _thank you_ into the cheap feather pillow before she collapses. 

Afterwards they curl into each other's warmth, softness meeting softness. Addison runs her fingers lightly along the curve of Izzie's back, the knobs of her spine just barely detectable under satin-smooth skin. Izzie rolls gently closer, sliding a thigh between two others. Addison feels herself relaxing in spite of herself, her breath deepening, her head growing heavy against the suddenly comfortable pillow. Soft tendrils of hair blow gently against her face as her lids grow heavier; deep inside, her climax still echoes in the occasional shudder. It is still hard to tell where one of them ends and one of them begins; someone exhales deeply, someone nudges closer to another; someone's lips, painfully soft, stroke an exposed shoulder. 

Her last thought, before she drifts off, is: _I needed that._

* * *

_FIVE_

* * *

"Is that yesterday's paper?"

"Tuesday's, actually. It's - habit," Addison explains. She's almost forgotten that Izzie doesn't really know her that well yet. "I hang onto the crossword puzzle until I'm finished."

"Oh. I brought you a coffee." Izzie sets a steaming paper cup on Addison's desk, next to the newspaper.

"Thanks." Addison takes a deep, grateful sip. 

Izzie eyes the crumpled newsprint. "Have you been carrying that crossword around all week?"

Addison nods. "I'm almost done. I'm stuck on one thing - a seven-letter word for completed."

"I suck at crosswords."

"It's okay." She refolds the paper. "You're good at other things." Standing, she inhales the scent of the other woman's neck - it's something like baby powder but earthier, almost familiar at this points. Addison slides her hands under the crisp material of ever-present scrubs, fills her palms with softness. Izzie's pliant under her for a moment, that familiar way she wilts and grows at the same time, filling the spaces between them. Then she pulls back.

"Addison-"

"Let's not talk." 

"I have to be in Burke's OR in ten minutes."

"We can be done in eight," she purrs.

"Addison, I can't do this."

"What do you mean?" She's chilly suddenly, hating the way her thin voice gives her away. Mark would know. Derek would pretend not to. But Izzie looks at her with what feels like pity and for a moment Addison wants to die.

"Look, I just - we're in your office, even if the blinds are closed, you're my _teacher_ , you want to fuck me in Meredith's house and then you go to her ex-boyfriend's trailer and -"

_Ex-boyfriend?_ Addison could laugh. "You're a child." If she sounds disappointed, it's because she is. 

"I'm an _intern_ ," Izzie corrects tiredly. Her voice cracks halfway through. "I had one day off this week and I spent it with you. I'm exhausted. Mentally. Physically. Em-"

Addison cuts her off before she can say _emotionally_ and embarrass them both. Izzie's eyes are red-rimmed, there are tendrils of none-too-clean blonde wisping around her full cheeks and Addison's annoyed that all she wants to do is push her against the wall once more for old times' sake. 

She closes the door on Izzie's protests instead, coolly wishing her luck in the OR. It's the story of her life; she wants everything because she gets nothing or is it the other way around? She drives home alone that night with one hand curling rage on the gearshift, daring an 18-wheeler to cross her path. 

Derek's got his flannel-shirted back to her when she staggers through the screen door.

"I hate the trailer." She drops her oversized leather bag to the floor. 

"We're out of milk," he says calmly, rummaging in the tiny refrigerator. 

She toes out of her heels and sinks onto the kitchen bench, pulling the unfinished crossword out of her purse. The blank boxes stare at her. 

"Seven letter word for ‘finished’." She rummages for a pen, chews its tip with bitten lips. 

Resigned? No, too many letters. Defeated? 

D-e-f-e-a-t-e-d. She props her chin in her hand.

"What'd you say?" He's rustling at the miniscule counter behind her. 

"I said I'll pick some up tomorrow," she lies neatly.

It's eight steps to the bed - she's counted enough times - but it feels like walking through molasses. She flicks open the top two buttons of her blouse, welcomes the chill on her bare shoulders. He won't notice the fading bite mark on her clavicle. She presses two fingers on it, hard, relieved at the sting. She's still alive. Tonight, anyway. The unfinished puzzle floats to the bed.

Derek yawns, closes the cabinet, pads by her in his slippers for all the world like a husband. He picks up the folded paper from the quilt; she lets him.

He scans the puzzle. "Seven letter word for ‘finished’?"

"I'm stuck," she admits. 

He's quiet for a moment, then: "Perfect."

"I'm sorry?"

" _Perfect_. Seven letter word for finished."

That's not where she thought this was going.

His tone is didactic; he misconstrues her silence: "Finished in the sense of complet-"

"I know what perfect means," Addison snaps, interrupting. 

They're both silent, listening to rain drum the trailer windows. 

**Author's Note:**

> ... do people want to read Addison/Izzie? Is it worth continuing to dig through the archives (such as they are)? Why are all Addison ships such hotbeds of wasted potential? Oh, and thank you for reading.


End file.
